Artificial fuel and process of making the same.



to be employed in producing an agglomer-' NITED PATENT OFFICE.

VICTOR J. KUESS, OF TUNIS, TUNIS.

ARTIFICIAL FUEL AND-PROCESS OF MAKING THE SAME Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Sept. 4, 1906.

Application filed March 1, 1904. Serial No. 196,080.

To all whom/it may concern:

Be it known that I, VICTOR J OSEPII KUESS, a citizen of the Republic of France, and a resident of N o. 2 Rue Gharnouta, Tunis, Tunis, have invented a certain new and useful Artificial Fuel and Process of Making the Same; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to a process for solidifying petroleum and other mineral oils for use as fue The quantitive proportions of substances atcd mass or cake of fuel varies arcording'to the quantity of petroleum or mineral to be converted. For facility of explanation suppose that it is desired to solidify petroleum weighing eight hundred grams per liter. For one hundred liters of petroleum reduce to fine division ten kilos of dark rosin, resin or any other hydrocarbon of the turpentine series. Dissolve the resin cold in the petroleum by eonstant stirring. First melt separately ten kilos of beef suet or any other animal fat, and when the tallow is quite liquefied pour it into the mixture (petroleum and resin) and stir thoroughly. Leave it to cool, stirring it from time to time. Also separately dissolve five kilos of caustic soda in ten liters of water and add the solution to the mass, at the same time stirring. After about two hours add, pouring in a little at a time, a liter of hydrochloric acid. The mass will become hot and liquefy, and the various substances will beeome intimately combined with the petroleum. Then dissolve two kilos of caustic soda in five liters of water, and after about four hours pour into the mass this new solution while stirring. Leave the pasty product for two or three days. At the end of that time melt the mass on a slow fire and immediately withdraw it from the fire and leave it to cool. If it'is desired to use simple solidified petroleum, redissolve it in ten liters of water and pour the solution in molds or shapes. If, on the contrary, it is desired to make bri uets for heating purposes to burn less quick y than petroleum, simply melt the solidified petroleum formed as above indicated and add a certain quantity of water. The water will be completely incorporated. Withdraw the mass from the fire, still liquid and hot, and mix with it other solid combustlbles reduced to a fine state of division-for example, sawdust, coal-dust, wood-carbon, lignite finely crushed, bark, or other such dividcd substances. Moreover, the moreone adds of these combustible subtances to the petroleum base the more slowly will the riquets burn.

Excellent briquets can be made by adding to ten kilos of solidified petroleum two liters of water and. stirring intimately into the boiling mass six kilos of oak sawdust. One obtains thus masses which when compressed form briquets of very firm character, giving a bright flame, burning without smell, making only little smoke, and above all generating a very intense heatto wit, about fourteen thousand five hundred calor1es.

Calorimetric tests of my fuel in comparison with the other commercial fuels have given the following results: wood, six thousand Calories; coal, seven thousand two hundred calories; charcoal, eight'thousand calories; petroleum, twelve thousand calories; Kuesss fuel, fourteen thousand five hundred calories. The product obtained by me dissolves completely in water without leaving any floating greasy or oily substance. Upon melting the product and boiling it the petroleum does not separate, and upon reeooling the briquet becomes uniformly solid' again and without a trace of separation. When the product is dissolved in water and precipitated with hydrochloric acid, three distinct fatty bodies are obtained, of which bodies two are soluble in sulfuric acid. The'third body, aliquid, is apparently a form of petroleum which is completely'soluble in concentrated sulfuric acid.

In one experiment made by me the petroleum employed as an ingredient of the artificial fuel gave the reading 25 on the polariscope, while the new hydrocarbon, separated out by analysis, as above explained, gave the reading 30. Moreover, the petroleum as used was laevo-rotatory, whereas the new hydrocarbon was d extrr rotatory, thus showing that it is no longer possible to recover the original petroleum by analysis and establishing the fact that the petroleum has become chemically bound in the fuel to the extent that it cannot afterward be segregated by any physical treatment.

I claim 1. In the manufacture of artificial fuel, the

process fsolidifying oil, which con- 7 sists inlvin'g resin and animal fat inthe mineral oil, then act' on the mixture with an alkali and then a'd ing an acid to the re sultant mixture.

2. In the manufa'otureof artificial fuel, the process of solidifying mineral oil, which consists in dissolving resin and animal fat in the mineral oil, then act' on the mixture with an alkali, and then-ad ing hydrochloricacid to the resultant mixture.

3. In tlie'manufactureof'artificialfuel, the process'of solidifying mineral oil, con-' in dissolving resin and animal oil in the mineral oil, then acting on the mixture with caustic soda, and then adding anacid to the resultant rodixct'.

4. In t e manufactur of artificial fuel, the process of solidifying mineral oil, which consists dissolving and animal 'fat in the ten kilos 0 bound mineral oil.

and then adding an acid to the resultant product.

6. The rocess which consists in adding f resin and ten kilos of animal fat to one hundred liters of etroleum, then addto the mixture a so u'tion' of five kilos of caustic soda in ten liters of. water, and then adding one liter of hydrochloric 'acid to the resultant compound.

7. In the manufacture of artificial fuel, the process which consists in dissolving a hydrocarbon of the terpene series and an animal fatin mineral oil, then acting on the mixture with an alkali, then adding an acid to the resultant product, and then mixing the m'ass thus obtalned with a comminuted solidcombustible material.

8. An artificial fuel containing chemically- 9. An artificial fuel containing chemicallybound mineral oil and a comminuted sohd combustible material.

In witness whereof I have hereuntosetmy hand in presence of two witnesses.

. V. J. KUESS.

Witnesses:

- P. JULLVIERY,

N. RALLY. 

